Generally, gas cooktop appliances include a plurality of gas burners mounted to a top surface of the appliance. During use of the cooktop, spills and overflows can lead to food particles accumulating on the top surface of the cooktop. Such food particles can collect beneath the gas burners and be difficult to clean.
Oven appliance users frequently cite difficulty cleaning beneath the gas burners as a complaint about modern cooktops. However, cleaning below gas burners on modern cooktops is difficult for a variety of reasons. For example, gas burners that are fastened to the cooktops generally include cracks at assembly interfaces that tend to accumulate food particles. As another example, gas burners that are removable from the cooktops by a user of the cooktop for cleaning generally include holes, supporting geometry and fasteners that are difficult to clean around. In addition, gas burners positioned coincident to top surfaces of associated cooktops inherently heat the top surfaces of the cooktops. The hot top surface of the cooktop can burn food particles, and burnt food particles on the cooktop can be particularly difficult to clean.
Accordingly, a cooktop appliance with features for facilitating cleaning below a burner of the cooktop appliance would be useful. In addition, a cooktop appliance with features for limiting heat transfer from a burner of the cooktop appliance to a top panel of the cooktop appliance would be useful.